Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.

If man is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust.

We need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed

These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

Passion makes every detail important.

There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.

No animal ever invented anything as bad as drunkenness - or so good as drink.

He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.

The chief object of education is not to learn things but to unlearn things.

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity a a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.

children are simply human beings who are allowed to do what everyone else really desires to do, as for instance, to fly kites, or when seriously wronged to emit prolonged screams for several minutes.

The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world... The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better.

Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.

Daybreak is a never-ending glory; getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance.

The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it.

[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them.

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

A nation that has nothing but its amusements will not be amused for long.

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask.

We can’t turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls.

You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion.

The center of every man's existence is a dream.

What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible.

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.

A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.

The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.

If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever.

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.

Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know.

Saint George he was for England, And before he killed the dragon he drank a pint of English ale out of an English flagon.

All architecture is great architecture after sunset.

Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

"Are you a devil?" "I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils in my heart."

The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

A yawn is a silent shout.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.

Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made an essential and godliness is regarded as an offence.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.